nce Michael would have it so, there, at last, they were.

There was a good deal of doubt in France about the vigour of the British
effort, until the Somme offensive. All that had been dispelled in August
when I reached Paris. There was not the shadow of a doubt remaining
anywhere of the power and loyalty of the British. These preliminary
assurances have to be made, because it is in the nature of the French
mind to criticise, and it must not be supposed that criticisms of detail
and method affect the fraternity and complete mutual confidence which is
the stuff of the Anglo-French relationship.

2

Now first the French have been enormously astonished by the quality of
the ordinary British soldiers in our new armies. One Colonial colonel
said something almost incredible to me--almost incredible as coming
as from a Frenchman; it was a matter to solemn for any compliments or
polite exaggerations; he said in tones of wonder and conviction, "_They
are as good as ours._" It was his acme of all possible praise.

That means any sort of British soldier. Unless he is assisted by a kilt
the ordinary Frenchman is unable to distinguish between one sort of
British soldier and another. He cannot tell--let the ardent nationalist
mark the fact!--a Cockney from an Irishman or the Cardiff from the Essex
note. He finds them all extravagantly and unquenchably cheerful and with
a generosity--"like good children." There his praise is a little tinged
by doubt. The British are reckless--recklessness in battle a Frenchman
can understand, but they are also reckless about to-morrow's bread and
whether the tent is safe against a hurricane in the night. He is struck
too by the fact that they are much more vocal than the French troops,
and that they seem to have a passion for bad lugubrious songs. There he
smiles and shrugs his shoulders, and indeed what else can any of us
do in the presence of that mystery? At any rate the legend of the
"phlegmatic" Englishman has been scattered to the four winds of heaven
by the guns of the western front. The men are cool in action, it is
true; but for the rest they are, by the French standards, quicksilver.

But I will not expand further upon the general impression made by the
English in France. Philippe Millet's _En Liaison avec les Anglais_ gives
in a series of delightful pictures portraits of British types from the
French angle. There can be little doubt that the British quality, genial
naive, plucky and ge